Nuwara Eliya, Srilanka

25 Jun

Learning our lesson from Sigiriya/Dambulla trip, we left Kandy early in the morning for our last stop, Nuwara Eliya, the "Little England". En route to Nuwara Eliya, we made a stop at Labukale Tea Factory. We had a guided tour to the factory, tasted tea with chocolate cake and bought some tea leaves back. It was a scenic route from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya with all the tea plantations along the way, the road is small mountainous road though. We managed to made it for lunch at Grand Hotel in Nuwara Eliya with Sachini and Indra.

En route to Nuwara Eliya

A cup of tea from Labukale Tea Factory

After lunch, we checked in to Governor's Chalet. It was the best in the trip, the chalet is right beside Gregory Lake. One chalet could accomodate 4 people, 2 on the ground floor and 2 on attic floor. The only disappointment was that June is not good season for visiting Nuwara Eliya. It rains almost everyday. Hence, we could not do much outdoor activities.

Gregory Lake

In front of our Chalet

After checking in, we visited a Rama temple that was claimed as the only Rama Temple in the world by Srilankans. We also went around Nuwara Eliya town and visited St. Francis Xavier Church there. We packed kotthu roti and chinese roll back. Dinner was at Governor's Chalet's restaurant. The food is good and service is slightly faster than other places.

Rama Temple

St. Francis Xavier Church in Nuwara Eliya

26 Jun

We decided to relax in the morning, took our slow breakfast, and started our trip back to Colombo only at 12 noon. We reached Kithulgala resting place at around 2pm for our late lunch. The food is OK only and as usual, the service is slow. Nothing much to do at this place except for meals. We continue our long journey to Negombo beach, on the way we made our stop to buy some cashew nuts as well. We reached Negombo beach around 6.30pm, a bit too late to take nice photos there.

Waterfall!

Negombo beach is only 1 hour away from Colombo airport. We made it back to the airport at 9.30pm and waited all the way to our midnight flight back to Singapore.

Kandy, Srilanka

23 Jun
En route to Kandy, we visited two famous places in Srilanka, the Sigiriya Rock and Dambulla Cave Temple. It took around 4 hours from Colombo to reach these places, however, because we needed to exchange money, we took a detour and reached Sigiriya very late at around 2pm. We had lunch first at Sigiriya Hotel and it took 45 minutes just to get the food served.

We reached the gate of Sigiriya rock at around 3.30pm and it was very hot. It is a 2-hour-climb to reach the top of the rock, hence we decided to forgo it. Sigiriya rock was a palace of Srilankan king before. The view surrounding the rock is nice though, we took several photos and moved on to Dambulla Cave Temple.

River surrounding Sigiriya Rock

Sigiriya Rock

Dambulla Cave is around half an hour from Sigiriya, there is some stairs to climb there. We need to wear covered clothes and take off our footwear when entering the temple. The view along the way up is awesome. The temple is inside a cave, there are lots of old nice paintings on the cave's wall.

Golden Buddha Statue in front of Dambulla Cave Temple

View on the way to Dambulla Cave

Sunset at Dambulla

Inside the Cave

Outside

We headed to Kandy right after Dambulla, it took us 1 hour plus to reach Kandy. Dinner was at Flower Song Chinese Restaurant. We tried Srilankan Chinese food, it is great. I feel the spices are a bit different from usual Chinese food. We spent around LKR7000 for 7 of us. We stayed at Thilanka Hotel for the night. The hotel is good and clean, it is located on top of a hill. From the balcony of the room, we could see Kandy city and Kandy lake.The only thing is their lift is under renovation and we need to climb stairs up and down.

24 Jun
We started the journey at around 9am in the morning right after breakfast. It took 1 hour drive to reach Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage. There are so many elephants there, big and small, we came at their bathing time. Small elephants are cute.

Big!

The entrance ticket to Pinnawala includes the entrance to Herbal Garden. There is a guy bringing us to visit Herbal Garden who said it's free in the beginning then asked for tips afterwards, so be careful here.

We had lunch at Devon Restaurant in Kandy. It was nice apart from, again, the waiting time. Lots of local people have meals there. I finally had my Srilankan food there.

Our next stop is Gadaladeniya Temple. It's another ancient temple around 10km from Kandy. The road going there is small and bumpy.

Statue inside Gadaladeniya Temple

Our final stop and main attraction of Kandy is Temple of the Relic Tooth. We made it there at 6.30pm when the Thevava rites began. Only during Thevava we could see the shrine of the Tooth, the book and the crystal. We were lucky to be able to see all. It's opened only for 10 minutes, hence people are squeezing each other in order to see.

We rush back to hotel after the Thevava to have our ayurvedha massage. It's not a massage at all, I feel they just pour oil and rub it. We had our dinner in the hotel, and by now we set our expectation already that food will be served in around 45 - 60 minutes.

Temple of the Tooth Relic

Another Golden Buddha

Colombo, Srilanka

The long awaited trip to Srilanka is finally here, this time we are a group of 7 going to Srilanka to attend Sachini's wedding as well as travel in Srilanka. We have Salinah, Bawani, Shishi, Fanfan, Putput and Arthur on board. There are not many choices for ticket to Srilanka, we missed the cheaper deal by Emirates, hence we took Singapore Airlines flight to Colombo, my second Singapore Airlines flight in my life. For this whole trip, thanks to Sachini for arranging a very detailed itinerary for us.

21 June
We left from Changi Airport Terminal 2 at 22.45 to reach Colombo at midnight. Sachini has arranged a driver to fetch us in the airport. We could bring USD or SGD to Srilanka and exchange it in the airport. The rate is not bad in airport and we need to declare it to customs if we bring more than USD10000 or equivalent.

We stayed in Galle Face Hotel for two nights, the hotel where the wedding would be held the next day. It's a collonial style hotel, used to be a mansion to a British governor. The room is big and clean, the location is good, right beside the beach.

Galle Face Hotel

22 June
The wedding ceremony started at 8.30 in the morning, with procession by Kandyan dancers. Sachini looks gorgeous in her wedding sari. It was 6 months since I met her last time when we went together to China. We missed some of the wedding due to our preparation. All girls wore sari, and 3 out of 4 don't know anything about sari. But finally we made it to the ballroom in sari. Srilankan wedding is quite different from the weddings I see in Indonesia or in Singapore. The bride and the groom will go around the tables, greeting all the guests before lunch. They need to kneel down to the elderly as well. After the greetings, the host will bring a glass of water on a plate to all the guests as a symbol to invite them for lunch, and the guests need to touch the plate as a symbol of accept it.

Photo taking sessions follow after lunch and the bride and groom need to symbolically leave the ballroom at 14.30. When the bride and groom walk out of the ballroom, we shower them with flower petals.Yes, it was symbolically because not long after that, we saw Sachini again in the hotel.

Anyway, we wish Sachini a happy married life, it was a great pleasure to be able to attend your big day.

For the rest of the day, 4 of us (because the 3 guys prefer to sleep in hotel) rented a taxi for LKR3500 for 4 hours to go around Colombo. We visited some of sari shops as well as Odel, their factory outlet. We went back to hotel to meet up with the guys for dinner. Dinner was at Raja Bojun Restaurant, it was Srilankan food buffet.

Srilanka's beach

23 June
Sachini has arranged a driver with a van to pick us up in the hotel early in the morning. We went to visit the biggest Buddhist temple in Colombo, which is the Gangaramaya Temple. There is one unique rule to enter temple in Srilanka, we need to wear long and covered clothes as well as we need to take off our footwear. The temple is big and there is one elephant there. Elephants are holy in Srilanka. The journey continued to exchange money and we headed to Sigiriya and Dambulla.

Gangaramaya Temple

The elephant

Jakarta - Bandung

A short trip before hectic work for exam is started and the very first trip in year 2011, this time with Putu, Fanfan and Nive. It started when TigerAir had promotion ticket for SGD65 return to Jakarta and it was overlapping with Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival.

2 Mar
We took evening flight back to Jakarta, reached Jakarta around 7pm at night. The trip was made so convenient by Putu, he got his driver to pick us up from the airport, and headed to Pondok Indah Mall for dinner. We had the famous Bakmi Gajah Mada for dinner, introducing Fan and Nive to Indonesian Food. Also again thanks to Putu and family for hosting us throughout the trip.

Sunset from the Plane

3 Mar
We started early in the morning to avoid traffic jam, yeah, we headed to Bandung, my hometown. It was Thursday, hence the traffic along the tollroad is OK. We reached Bandung around 11am, and I needed to make several calls to my dad to ask for direction. Sorry guys, I am really not familiar with Bandung road.

The first destination, of course, to fill in our stomach, we went to Kedai Teteh, at the junction between Lembang, Maribaya and Tangkuban Parahu. We had the famous nasi timbel of Bandung and was surprised that Fanfan can eat very spicy food.

Kedai Teteh, Lembang

Nasi Timbel + Orange Juice

We continue our journey to Tangkuban Parahu volcano. It has been years since the last time I visited Tangkuban Parahu volcano. The view is amazingly beautiful, the weather is the cool mountainous weather. We could see the crater and took lots of photos over there.

The Crater

Another view of the crater

Beautiful!

Another shot

Done with sightseeing trip, we continued for shopping trip. Bandung is famous for its factory outlets. Rumah Mode is the best option for shopping. Time is never enough when it comes to shopping cheap stuff. I was amazed by how many clothes we bought that day. The price is good though, 15 SGD for a good quality T-shirt, 15-20 SGD for bottoms.

My mum prepared dinner for all of us, so we made a short visit to my house. The famous nasi liwet and gado - gado are for dinner with teh botol sosro as drink. We could not stay too long in my house as we had to go back Jakarta soon. We reached Jakarta around 11pm at night.

4 Mar
We had free time in the morning, after a long discussion, we decided to try out hair creambath in Indonesia. Putu brought us to Irwan Team Salon, one of the most expensive hair salon in Jakarta, or more precisely should be in Indonesia. We had haircut and creambath. The price is still cheaper than Singapore and the service is much better.

At night we went to Java Jazz Festival, for the first time in my life, I ever go to watch concert in Indonesia. We also learnt about traffic jam in Jakarta, it took the freaking 3 hours from Ciputat to Kemayoran. We splitted in the festival, Fanfan and Nive went to watch Santana's concert, while Putu and I went to see Sondre Lerche. I don't know who is Sondre Lerche at first, but the concert turned out to be good, nice songs and nice performance. Then we gathered back to see few songs from Corinne Bailey Rae. We took a cab back at around 2am, amazingly, we could reach in half an hour.

Only in Jakarta : traffic jam with monkey on the road

5 Mar
This is the day for resting, Putu had to stay at home for Nyepi (a Balinese "Day of Silence" that is commemorated every Isakawarsa (Saka new year) according to Bali's calendar. It is a day of silence, fasting, and meditation. The day following Nyepi is also celebrated as New year). So we decided to explore some malls in Jakarta. Amazingly, Jakarta has lots of malls. We went to the famous Grand Indonesia. Putu's friend helped to bring us around. We had Indonesian Chinese food for lunch at Duck King Restaurant, nice food! Putu's friend drove us around in Jakarta to see Jakarta CBD, we managed to see Sampoerna Strategic Square where our Jakarta's office is located. We ended the day with dinner in Plaza Senayan with my friend.

6 Mar
Putu's family prepare authentic Balinese lunch for us, it is really awesome! I couldn't even find such food when I visited Bali. Then we went to airport to end the trip. Awesome trip!

Chengdu, Sichuan, China

Our final stop for the trip as well as our plane departing point, capital of Sichuan province, Chengdu.

29 Oct

After a long bus journey of 11 hours, we finally reached Xin Nan Men Bus Station (新南门车站） in Chengdu at around 6pm. We took cab from there to our hostel, Nova Traveller's Lodge. The taxi are all metered, however, it's a challege to get a taxi in Chengdu. It cost RMB14 from the bus station to the hostel.

The hostel is very good, it's new and clean. The staff are friendly. We stayed at 4-people dorm with shared toilet, however the toilet is clean and well-maintained. It cost RMB50/night for a person in 4-people-dorm. A large eating place is walking-distance away from the hostel.

The weather in Chengdu is much warmer than Jiuzhaigou, Langmusi and Xia He. It is the autumn temperature that we like so much.

30 Oct

We were so exhausted at this point of time already, hence we woke up very late today and had to forgo our plan to visit the Panda Breeding Centre. The pandas will be sleeping in the afternoon, hence there is no point of going there.

After a short discussion, we decided to go to Huang Long Xi Ancient Town (黄龙溪古镇). It's a one hour bus ride from Xin Nan Men Bus Station (新南门车站）, for RMB10/person. Please remember to buy the bus ticket back once you reach Huang Long Xi.

Welcome to Huang Long Xi!

The ancient town is very commercial now, anywhere people are selling souvenir and stuff, hence the feeling of ancient town is not there much anymore. I bought their food specialty, the black sesame cake (黑芝麻糕). It tastes quite nice.

Inside the Ancient Town

We took the last bus back to Chengdu at 6.30pm.

31 Oct

Visiting Chengdu is not complete without visiting Leshan Giant Buddha (乐山大佛）. We booked a car from the hostel for RMB600 to go to Leshan Giant Buddha (乐山大佛）. The trip took around 2 hours to reach there.

The soil and statue are red

The Buddha Statue there is really huge, it's 71m in height. We needed to queue very long to go down the stairs and see the statue from below. Alternatively, people can take the boat to go to the front part of it. The soil used to build the statue is red in colour. Apart from the statue there is nothing much else to see there. We had lunch in the restaurant nearby.

View from the top

After climbing down this stairs....

... and this is the real size!

On the way back, we alighted at Carrefour in Ba Bao Road (八宝街) to visit Ten Fu Teashop (天福茗茶） to buy some tea leaves home. I bought some of Iron Goddess tea (铁观音）, jasmine tea (茉莉茶) and green tea (竹叶青).

Today is also my birthday, Sachini, Gaya and Vij bought me a birthday cake, the hostel also gave me small cake to celebrate my birthday. A sweet small celebration to mark 25 years of my life.

1 Nov

After checking out early in the morning and store our luggage, we proceed to the Chengdu Panda Research Base and Breeding Centre (成都大熊猫繁育研究基地）. We took cab from our hostel for RMB40. It's slightly more expensive than bus, however it saved us lots of time and trouble.

The Centre houses 87 pandas, while now there are only around 2000 pandas left on earth. The pandas are very active in the morning, they are eating and playing. Apart from the giant panda, they also have the red pandas inside.

Cute butt

Lazy Bum!

The red pandas, don't look like panda at all!

After visiting the centre, we spent the rest of the day walk around the city of Chengdu and had our yuan yang hotpot (鸳鸯火锅) as our dinner before we left for airport to fly back.

Jiuzhaigou, China

Jiuzhaigou (九寨沟） is one of the most beautiful place I ever been in my life, a collection of lakes, waterfalls and mountains combined with autumn colours. It is located at Sichuan province (四川省）, 400km away from Chengdu. The altitude varies in the range of 2000 - 3000m above sea level.

26 Oct
We reached Jiuzhaigou (九寨沟）around 2pm, and after shopping in some of the hotels/guesthouses, we decided to stay at Jiu Yang Quick Hotel (九阳捷酒店）. The price of the room is RMB180/night for 4 people room. It is located around 1km away from the entrance to the park, taxi to the entrance of the park cost RMB10. Despite the peak season in the month of October and November, rooms are widely available near the park.

There is nothing much that can be done near the entrance to the park, there are some stalls selling local specialties for shopping only.

27 Oct
Following the suggestion on the travel forum, we tried our best to be the first in the ticket counter queue, we reached there at 6.30am. They started selling tickets at 7am. The entrance ticket to Jiuzhaigou National Park is pretty expensive, RMB220, on top of that, we need to buy the bus ticket for RMB90.

We decided to go all the way up to the highest point at Promival Forest (原始森林). From there we took the bus down again to Arrow Bamboo Lake (箭竹海) and walk towards the entrance from there.

原始森林

Arrow Bamboo Lake (箭竹海)

The view of the park is simply amazing, one of the best view I ever seen in my life. The autumn colours are beautiful. The weather is very good as well, make the blue sky blended well with the rest of the scenery.

Panda Lake (熊猫海)

Panda Waterfall (熊猫瀑布）

Nuorilang Waterfall (诺日朗瀑布）

28 Oct
The weather was not as good as the previous day, however, we still haven't finished walking all the trails inside Jiuzhaigou National Park. So we went in again (and paid again the expensive entrance ticket because there is no multiple day pass due to peak season).

Long Lake （长海）

Colourful Lake (五彩池）

Waterfall, Lake, and Leaves

The path in the park

Reed Lake

29 Oct
We took direct bus back to Chengdu (成都), departed at 7am. There are 3-4 buses in the morning connecting the park and Chengdu. If you miss the bus, you will need to go to Jiuzhaigou Town (九寨溝縣城), around 40km away from the park. There are more buses from there to Chengdu. The bus drive took around 10 hours, the view near the park is beautiful on the road.